Since January 10, Google has laid off more than 1,000 employees across various departments. Chief Executive Sundar Pichai’s message was to prepare for further cuts.
“We have ambitious goals and will invest in our big priorities this year,” Pichai told all Google employees in an internal memo on Wednesday, part of which was shared with me. “The reality is that in order to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make hard choices.”
So far, those “tough choices” include layoffs and reorganization of Google’s hardware, ad sales, search, shopping, maps, policy, core engineering and YouTube teams.
“These job cuts are not on the same scale as last year and will not affect every team,” Pichai wrote in his memo, referring to the 12,000 layoffs Google had this time last year. “But I know it’s difficult to see colleagues and teams affected.”
“Many of these changes have already been announced, and although they need to be announced in advance, some teams will continue to make specific resource allocation decisions as needed throughout the year, and some roles may be impacted,” he wrote.
A Google spokesman had no further comment.
